Aparto - The Ultimate Apartment Resource

Aparto is a property management service to facilitate transparent and efficient communication between apartment building managers and tenants.

This is a group project from the Designing Mobile Services course, taught by John Zimmerman and James Morris at the Carnegie Mellon Human-Computer Interaction Institute.

Transcript

1. Designing Mobile Services 1
   May 2, 2011 APARTO
   Anubhuti Jain
   Molly Nix
   Yuan Wang
   Yebin Zhang
   

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2. Designing Mobile Services 2
   May 2, 2011 APARTO
   INTRODUCTION
   

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3. Designing Mobile Services 3
   May 2, 2011 APARTO
   Have you ever...
   INTRODUCTION
   • Been late for a rent payment?
   • Had trouble with maintenance requests?
   • Struggled to find reliable information on the
   internet while looking for apartments?
   

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4. Designing Mobile Services 4
   May 2, 2011 APARTO
   •  32% of apartment building owners are looking to
   improve customer service (Jan 2011)
   •  58% of apartment building owners worry about
   timely rent payment (Sept 2010)
   •  53% of apartment seekers are using the internet
   as their primary source of information during
   apartment hunting (Sept 2010)
   Source: J Turner Research, jturnerresearch.com
   The space
   INTRODUCTION
   

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5. Designing Mobile Services 5
   May 2, 2011 APARTO
   A property management service to facilitate
   transparent and efficient communication between
   apartment building managers and tenants.
   And a platform for tenants to provide consistent
   customer feedback to managers and apartment
   seekers to help the apartment hunting process.
   Aparto is...
   INTRODUCTION
   

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6. Designing Mobile Services 6
   May 2, 2011 APARTO
   is a service for tenants
   to share their voice.
   INTRODUCTION
   

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7. Designing Mobile Services 7
   May 2, 2011 APARTO
   is a service for apartment seekers
   to get genuine, up-to-date
   reviews from real tenants.
   INTRODUCTION
   

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8. Designing Mobile Services 8
   May 2, 2011 APARTO
   is a service for building managers
   to ensure transparent and
   effective management.
   INTRODUCTION
   

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9. Designing Mobile Services 9
   May 2, 2011 APARTO
   is a service for real estate owners
   to stay more in touch with
   their properties.
   INTRODUCTION
   

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10. Designing Mobile Services 10
    May 2, 2011 APARTO
    is a service for Maintenance crews
    to get real-time and accurate
    information about their
    responsibilities.
    INTRODUCTION
    

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11. Designing Mobile Services 11
    May 2, 2011 APARTO
    The NEED
    

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12. Designing Mobile Services 12
    May 2, 2011 APARTO
    Tenants
    • Transparent communication with the management
    • Better management service
    • Means of providing feedback to management
    Stakeholder Analysis
    The NEED
    

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13. Designing Mobile Services 13
    May 2, 2011 APARTO
    Apartment Building Managers
    • Effective and speedy communication with the
    maintenance crew
    • Consistent customer feedback from tenants
    • Better management service
    Stakeholder Analysis
    The NEED
    

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14. Designing Mobile Services 14
    May 2, 2011 APARTO
    Maintenance Workers
    • Efficient maintenance work
    • Appreciation for the work
    Stakeholder Analysis
    The NEED
    

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15. Designing Mobile Services 15
    May 2, 2011 APARTO
    Real Estate Management Company Owners
    • Ability to see the voice of the tenants
    • Transparent information on the state of their
    properties
    • Better control over management
    Stakeholder Analysis
    The NEED
    

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16. Designing Mobile Services 16
    May 2, 2011 APARTO
    Apartment Seekers
    • Unbiased and reliable information and reviews
    about apartments
    Stakeholder Analysis
    The NEED
    

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17. Designing Mobile Services 17
    May 2, 2011 APARTO
    The NEED
    Tenant
    Apartment
    Seekers
    Value Diagram
    Maintenance
    Team
    Manager
    Owner
    Aparto
    Revenue
    Customer feedback
    performance
    measure
    Help manage tenants
    Control
    Status update/
    Better service
    Better information
    A
    Access to Aparto
    A:
    • Rent payment
    • Maintenance request
    management
    • Feedback of apartment
    • Rating of apartment
    

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18. Designing Mobile Services 18
    May 2, 2011 APARTO
    Territory Matrix
    Weak Management-Tenant Relations
    Strong Personalized Tenant Support
    No
    Workflow
    Support
    Workflow
    Support
    Mailed Payments
    Phone Calls
    CRMs
    (Customer Relationship
    Management Tools)
    Arbitrary Ratings & Reviews Sites
    Trusted Ratings &
    Reviews Sites
    Word of Mouth
    Property
    Management
    Tools
    Online Rent Payment Tools
    Concierge, Doorman
    “Person always
    on-site”
    Newsletters
    Personal
    Visits
    Tenant-run Co-ops
    Aparto
    The NEED
    

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19. Designing Mobile Services 19
    May 2, 2011 APARTO
    By opening a channel of communication,
    Aparto will co-create value with tenants
    and building managers.
    We are rebundling the experience of living in
    an apartment and interacting with management.
    Aparto’s Goals tenants
    real estate
    owners
    maintenance
    apartment
    seekers
    managers
    The NEED
    

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20. Designing Mobile Services 20
    May 2, 2011 APARTO
    TECHNICAL FEASIBILITY
    

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21. Designing Mobile Services 21
    May 2, 2011 APARTO
    Tenants Maintenance
    Workers
    Managers Owners Potential
    Tenants
    Aparto
    Cloud
    Google
    Maps
    Third Party
    Cloud
    Server/Web Server
    Messaging system
    SMS System
    Email system
    Billing system
    Review/Rating system
    Maintenance request manager
    Records manager
    Block Diagram
    TECHNICAL FEASIBILITY
    

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22. Designing Mobile Services 22
    May 2, 2011 APARTO
    Resources
    Manpower
    • Front-end Developer, Smartphone Application
    Developer, Back-end Developer
    Software and Hardware
    • Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP (LAMP)
    • Amazon Web Service (Amazon EC2)
    TECHNICAL FEASIBILITY
    

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23. Designing Mobile Services 23
    May 2, 2011 APARTO
    Development Plan
    Phase 1
    • Back-end development
    • Most important features for partial users
    Phase 2
    • Add remaining feature to all users
    Phase 3
    • Compatibility and multi-platform
    TECHNICAL FEASIBILITY
    

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24. Designing Mobile Services 24
    May 2, 2011 APARTO
    FINANCIAL FEASIBILITY
    

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25. Designing Mobile Services 25
    May 2, 2011 APARTO
    Apartment
    owners
    simple monthly
    subscription service
    & percentage of
    rent payment
    Aparto
    Revenue Flow
    $$$
    FINANCIAL FEASIBILITY
    

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26. Designing Mobile Services 26
    May 2, 2011 APARTO
    Average units per apartment building:
    100
    According to apartmentratings.com, average rent in Pittsburgh for a 1-bedroom is $728, 2-bedroom is $847
    Average rent per unit is:
    $800
    And let’s say we get 100 buildings on board to use the system in a year...
    Our assumptions...
    FINANCIAL FEASIBILITY
    

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27. Designing Mobile Services 27
    May 2, 2011 APARTO
    We need: 3 developers
    & 25 weeks.
    Development Time
    FINANCIAL FEASIBILITY
    

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28. Designing Mobile Services 28
    May 2, 2011 APARTO
    1 full time developer, 2 part time developer,
    1 part time UI designer, 1 sales person
    
    
    Cost: $171,000
    Development Time
    FINANCIAL FEASIBILITY
    ONE TIME COST
    

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29. Designing Mobile Services 29
    May 2, 2011 APARTO
    
    Database space at Amazon EC2, two servers
    Cost: $7,000
    Infrastructure cost
    FINANCIAL FEASIBILITY
    ONE TIME COST
    

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30. Designing Mobile Services 30
    May 2, 2011 APARTO
    $171,000 development labor cost
    + $7,000 infrastructure cost
    -----------------------------------------------------
    
    $178,000 start-up cost
    Total Expenses
    FINANCIAL FEASIBILITY
    

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31. Designing Mobile Services 31
    May 2, 2011 APARTO
    
    Full time developer, full time sales manager,
    Amazon EC2, Merchant Account and transaction fee
    Cost: $137,420
    Maintenance Cost
    FINANCIAL FEASIBILITY
    YEARLY
    

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32. Designing Mobile Services 32
    May 2, 2011 APARTO
    Aparto Subscription cost:
    $1 per unit/month by the owner
    Rent Payments:
    2% of all the rent payments
    Revenue
    FINANCIAL FEASIBILITY
    

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33. Designing Mobile Services 33
    May 2, 2011 APARTO
    Charge $1 per unit per month, $50 minimum
    $1/unit per month
    x 100 units/building
    x 100 buildings
    x 12 months
    ---------------------------------------
    $120,000 / year
    Owners Subscribing Monthly
    PAYMENT 1
    FINANCIAL FEASIBILITY
    

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34. Designing Mobile Services 34
    May 2, 2011 APARTO
    2% of every rent transaction
    x 25% of Aparto Subscribers
    x $800 average rent per unit
    x 100 units
    x 100 buildings
    x 12 months
    ---------------------------------------
    $480,000 / year
    Paying for Rent Transaction
    PAYMENT 2
    FINANCIAL FEASIBILITY
    

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35. Designing Mobile Services 35
    May 2, 2011 APARTO
    we’ll be making in first year
    $286,580
    $600,000 yearly profits - $313,420 startup costs =
    FINANCIAL FEASIBILITY
    

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36. Designing Mobile Services 36
    May 2, 2011 APARTO
    we’ll be making in second year
    $472,580
    $600,000 yearly profits - $137,420 Maintenance costs =
    FINANCIAL FEASIBILITY
    

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37. Designing Mobile Services 37
    May 2, 2011 APARTO
    $16,800
    For each new apartment building in the Aparto network we will make:
    FINANCIAL FEASIBILITY
    

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38. Designing Mobile Services 38
    May 2, 2011 APARTO
    CONCLUSION
    

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39. Designing Mobile Services 39
    May 2, 2011 APARTO
    • Improve interactions between building management and tenants
    • Helping tenants see their management is about serving them
    • Allow apartment seekers to find truthful, up-to-date reviews in
    one easy-to-reach location
    • Building managers already pay for
    mediocre software that does this;
    payment for this type of service
    would not be something new
    • Subscription service provides
    monthly revenue
    • Smart phones and web services are
    increasingly prevalent for consumers and
    businesses
    • Extend the functionality of management
    software to directly reach tenants
    • Improving transactions to be more
    transparent and secure
    • Providing “just-in-time” information for
    emergency and non-emergency situations
    Social
    Technology
    Economic
    A channel
    to facilitate transparent
    and effective communication
    between building managers
    and tenants, and provide
    a means of consistent
    customer feedback.
    CONCLUSION
    

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40. Designing Mobile Services 40
    May 2, 2011 APARTO
    VIDEO SKETCH
    

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41. Designing Mobile Services 41
    May 2, 2011 APARTO
    Thank you from
    Anubhuti Jain
    Molly Nix
    Yuan Wang
    Yebin Zhang
    

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